🌍The Next Fifty Years, Part II

At 10 a.m. Eastern, U.S. forces began intercepting vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports, extending operations into the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. 

The directive, seen by Bloomberg, allowed non-Iran-bound traffic to continue transiting the strait while targeting ships tied to Iranian ports.

Daily vessel traffic fell from roughly 135 transits to single digits. Tankers held position outside the channel or diverted cargo. Marine insurers raised premiums on voyages entering the region as routes that had cleared routinely a month ago required new pricing.

Iran’s national security commission spokesperson, Ebrahim Rezaei, called the blockade a “bluff” and said Iran retains “cards” it has not yet played, according to The Washington Times. 

And so go a few of today’s updates in the global resource skirmish…

🛢️ Oil Prices Rise on Fewer Cargoes

Crude prices rose 5% as shipments through Hormuz declined. 

As we pointed out on Friday, the Consumer Price Index rose 0.9% in March from February. The annual rate reached 3.3%, up from 2.4% the prior month. 

Energy prices increased 21.3% in a single month, the largest jump since records began in 1957. Gasoline and diesel prices rose more than $1 per gallon after tanker traffic slowed.

JD Vance, leading the gaggle of U.S. Negotiators, left Islamabad over the weekend without a settlement. President Trump, who’d been in on the meetings via satellite phone, stated later that U.S. forces would intercept vessels that paid transit fees to Iran, according to CBS.

Alexandra Wilson-Elizondo of Goldman Sachs Asset Management told Business Insider that recent inflation data “may only partially capture the full force of the Iran conflict,” citing the earlier surge in U.S. crude and gasoline prices.

A Federal Reserve study cited by Benzinga estimated that tariffs implemented through November 2025 had already increased core goods consumer prices by 3.1% through February 2026 – before missiles even started taking out Iranian armaments and mine boats near the Strait of Hormuz.

🚢Tankers Redirect Toward U.S. Ports

Supertankers repositioned toward U.S. export terminals as Persian Gulf shipments slowed. The United States exports approximately 5 million barrels per day.

A real-time map of every empty crude oil tanker over 150k+ tons. The majority of Middle Eastern crude oil goes to Asia. That is a 21-day trip from the Persian Gulf versus a 50+ day trip from the United States. A fully laden supertanker tops out at 14 to 17 MPH. (Source: Sal Mercogliano (WGOW Shipping) on X)

A tanker traveling from the Persian Gulf to Asia completes the trip in about 21 days. A vessel departing from the U.S. Gulf Coast requires more than 50 days at operating speeds of 14 to 17 miles per hour. 

Delivering equivalent volumes from U.S. ports requires additional ships. Shipyard expansion takes 3 to 5 years.

“If the world is going to get its crude from the U.S.,” writes Jim Bianco, identifying a possible investment angle, on X, “the world is going to need twice as many oil tankers.”

🧭 Civilizations Interpret Conflict Differently

Back in 1993, following the first Gulf War, Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington shook the foreign policy establishment with The Clash of Civilizations, a treatise on how societies interpret events through their own historical frameworks. 

Today’s media and establishment politicians, naturally, still haven’t digested what Huntington was driving at. 

In Clash Huntington, cited China’s view of itself as the “Middle Kingdom,” the Islamic concept of the ummah, and Western universalism as examples of existing, competing world views; each having little use for the other two visions.

Huntington wrote that “every civilization sees itself as the center of the world and writes its history as the central drama of human history.” 

In the 1990s Balkans conflicts, Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Bosnian Muslims each described the same territory and the same events through different civilizational narratives.

The same pattern appears in current events. 

A naval blockade, a shipping restriction, or a sanctions regime produces identical data — cargo counts, insurance premiums, delivery delays — while governments and populations assign different meanings based on their own frameworks.

Huntington also warned that civilizations that assume their system has reached its final form often operate late in their cycle. 

Those assumptions appear alongside rising financial commitments, exploding debt, expanding external obligations and a growing need to defend the system that produced the confidence.

(Putting the U.S. into the scheme of world history, we called it The Empire of Debt in 2006.)

🏗️ Saudi Arabia and U.S. Technology Investment

The U.S. super deal with Saudi Arabia has included large-scale commitments tied to energy, defense, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. Capital flows from Gulf sovereign wealth funds into U.S. technology firms have increased alongside joint development projects tied to data centers and energy supply.

These, as reflected in both President Trump’s and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s public comments, extend beyond oil pricing. Or the transitory conflict with Iran that has been dominating the headlines, financial and political, since February 28, 2026. 

The grand bargain involves long-duration (a 50-year) commitments to infrastructure that supports computing capacity—power generation, cooling systems, and physical security. Data centers require a continuous energy supply measured in gigawatts, linking digital systems directly to physical energy networks.

Saudi Arabia’s role as both an energy producer and a capital allocator places it on both sides of that system. Energy exports fund sovereign investment vehicles. Those vehicles deploy capital into technology infrastructure that depends on a stable energy supply.

🖥️Artificial Intelligence and Civilizational Competition

In the United States, artificial intelligence development is financed through private capital markets. Firms commit hundreds of billions of dollars to build computing infrastructure, purchase semiconductors, and train large-scale models.

In China, artificial intelligence systems are integrated into state-directed industrial policy and governance frameworks. Investment decisions align with national priorities, including manufacturing, surveillance, and logistics.

Both systems require the same inputs: energy, semiconductors, and physical infrastructure. Those inputs move through supply chains that include maritime routes currently under restriction.

Revisiting Huntington’s framework is helpful for placing these developments within a broader context. 

“Modernization” is not the same as Westernization, as much as Pete Hegseth would like it to mean that. 

Developing countries adopt technology to increase their power while maintaining distinct institutional structures and cultural values. China has its own plans for the global AI economy. As do the Saudis. 

Only the Saudis, thus far, see the U.S.’s vision as consistent to their own. 

💣Forever Wars Are Just That

On April 13, 2017, U.S. forces deployed the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast against an Islamic State tunnel complex near the Pakistani border.

The weapon weighed 22,000 pounds and was delivered from a cargo aircraft.

The blast radius extended roughly one mile. More than 90 militants were killed. The Pentagon’s review under the Law of Armed Conflict described the weapon as “discriminate” when directed at a defined target.

The deployment demonstrated the scale of the available force. The surrounding system—terrain, supply lines, local control—determined how that force translated into sustained outcomes.

Indeed, the massive ordinance had little effect in helping the U.S. troops achieve their objectives in Afghanistan 

🧭 The Next Fifty Years

Huntington argued that, based on a survey of conflicts in the early 1990s, the borders between Islamic and non-Islamic civilizations were areas of high conflict. 

The idea had become a central, highly debated point in debates over the role of religion in global conflicts.

The forever wars are one feature of an ongoing clash between civilizational demand for raw materials, natural resources and the “stuff” on which competing civilizations view their own progress toward the apex of human achievement…

Artificial intelligence systems require a continuous energy supply. Data centers operate around the clock. Cooling systems, power grids, and semiconductor fabrication facilities operate within fixed physical constraints. 

So who’s going to build them and direct them to what end?

Those are some heady questions to ask. The answers to those questions will help you figure out where to plunk down your own bets as the remake of the world order unfolds under Trump’s reset agenda.

Shipping lanes determine how energy reaches those systems. Tanker availability determines how quickly the supply adjusts. Insurance pricing determines which routes remain viable. All of them are bundled into the $4.12-per-gallon average price Americans are bitching about paying at the gas pump.   

It might be easy to look at the stock market and see a boom in AI tech companies… but those rapidly advancing AI systems are expanding alongside military commitments to secure the infrastructure they depend on. 

Cargo routes, power generation, and computing capacity develop within the same network of constraints. Consumer prices are what we pay as consumers.

And so it goes… 

~ Addison

P.S.: Last week’s Grey Swan Live!  with Dr. Mark Skousen yielded a romp through political and economic “liberty” from the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the 25o-year anniversary of Adam’s Smith’s Wealth of Nations – with a strong detour through the renaissance accomplishments of Benjamin Franklin – all the way to Elon Musk and the entrepreneurs leading the U.S. economy into the AI and space age.

As America celebrates its 250th anniversary this year, Mark is gathering renowned guests for The World’s Fair of Liberty – this year’s theme for FreedomFest – in Las Vegas, July 8-11, 2026.

FreedomFest is easily the most unique gathering of economists, historians, money managers, policymakers and iconoclasts held each year. The Anthem film festival, held in tandem, brings together filmmakers and creative types from all over the world. 

If you haven’t been, or want to return this year, the event promises to be a fantastic gathering in honor of America’s 250th anniversary. Check out the details here. (***During our conversation, Mark went into some detail on the discounts he was able to secure at Las Vegas hotels exclusively for attendees to this year’s event.)

In the meantime, you can watch the replay of Grey Swan Live! Mark Skousen in the members section of the Grey Swan website. If you’re not already a member, click here to join our latest livestream.